The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-10-22
The PLENTEous HARVEST.

The PLENTEoUs HARVEST.
Employing another figure drawn from the
occupation of husbandry, which was proba-
bly, more common in Galilee than that of
tending focks, JESUS forcibly impreeses the
urgent need of competent and faithful relig-
ious teachers and guides of the eager and ex-
pectant people, who were literally hungering
and thirsting for the very bread and water
of life which JESUS came to bring down from
heaven. "The harvest truly is plenteous,"
said he, "but the laborers are few" He
had previously employed the same metaphor
in conversation with his disciples at Jacobs
we'll, when the people fiocked from the neigh
boring city at the report of the Samaritan
woman to see and hear him, and he said,
Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields,
that they are white unto harvest" John iv.
35) Upon another occasion, he said, My
Father is the husbandman; the reapers are
the angels" Angels are messengers, those
who are sent. COP sends His reapers. whom
He qualities by His Spirit, into the human
harvest to gather and garner ripened souls
those qualified by faith and righteousness
into the Kingdom of his love and truth.
JESUS said to his disciples, PRAY the Master
of the Harvest (the hassbandman), that he
send forth laborers into his harvest" Prayer
may not change the mind or disposition of
GoD, but it conforms the mind and disposi-
ton of those who pray to the Divine desire
and purpose. by lifting the soul into COM
munion with God, and disposes the heart to
De- se rD1
sincere DESIRE" The exercise of strong
desire on the part of the disciples, that COB
would send out teachers Of His truth and
love among the people, who followed in
crowds upon JESUS ministry. to bless them,
would tend to dispose and qualify their own
minds and hearts to become Evangelists, and
90 forth as ambassadors for Christ, beseech-
ing men to become reconciled to COP, by re-
pentance and faith, proclaiming the good
news that the kin gdom of his truth and right
eousness was near.
Before the Christian church a world wide
opportunity is being offered to extend the
blessings of the Gospel to all the nations
the harvest fields for Christian endeavor are
already ripe for the sickle and the garner,
DuG, dS III TIC udy6 VI JESUS AlulotIty bho
laborers are not sufficiently numerous. The
great need of the Church is more and better
qualified ministers and Evangelists,- minis
tiers who will become missionaries. To secure
the much needed supply of consecrated and
qualified ministers and missionaries, the
Church needs to possess the same plying
love of mankind and to be made to feel the
aox,na niuipo oOmnaseinO for the ra1iUiouaIv
benighted and spiritually needy which is said
to have stirred the heart of JESUS, and to
pray earnestly the prayer, which he recon-
mended to his disciples, that GoD would
raise up and send forth laborers into his ex-
tensive and ripening harvest fields.
The extension of our own church is greatly
hindered for the want of available ministers
who are competent and capable OF success
fully occupying fields of promising opportu-
nifty and usefulness. The harvest fields of our
opportunity, as a branch of the Christian
Church, were never so plenteously promising
as now, and we were never so greatly in need
of aggressive ministers, properly qualified,
end with the true missionary spirit, to go
forth and successfully occupy these fields.
But the need when deeply felt will surely
create the supply. Such appears to be law
of the spiritual realm, if not indeed of the
entire universe. The world needs, especially
the religious world, our Gospel of Illimitable
Divine Love, of External Hope" and of
Universal Salvation. We need to feel, to be
moved with compassion by the worlds great
need, and to pray earnestly for an effective
increase of our ministry and the necessary
means of support, that GoD will send forth
laborers into his harvest who will gather the
waiting souls into the full joy and blessed
ness of His Salvation. When we deeply feel
the need of, and our whole church truly
prays for, larger and more effective minis
try, GoD will surely send the increase.
When CHRIST enjoins His disciples to petit
ton the Lord of the harvest to thrust out the
laborers, He really wishes them to have de-
sires in reference to the harvest akin to the
desires of COP himself; and hence it is that
he instruots them to carry up their desires to
COP. 1t is not that He expected them to
change the heart of COP, so that GoD might
be willing to get his ripe grain reaped. Far
from that, CHRIsT's own heart was really the
heart of COP in its MAYNARD relation. But
He wished His disciples to be themselves
ready for the work. And among the
innumerable relations and interlinkings of
things Divine and human there is scope, in
moral government for a larger outpouriDg
of the Divine Spirit when the conducting
rods of prayer ris up into the region of Di-
vine influence; James Morrison, ID. d., "a
Practical Commentary on the Gospel Accord
ing to st. Matthew"
This compassion for perishing man will
naturally lead to prayer for laborers, and
such compassion and prayer will form the
best preparation for going forth to be labor